error. But, some guardian genius warning me, I actually hunted up my own
observations. {10a} Well, I had never said (as I conceived my critic to
imply) that the story of Tuna 'accounts for the story of Daphne.' That
was what I had not said. I had observed, 'As to interchange of shape
between men and women and _plants_, our information, so far as the lower
races are concerned, is less copious'--than in the case of stones. I
then spoke of plant totems of one kin with human beings, of plant-souls,
{10b} of Indian and Egyptian plants animated by _human_ souls, of a tree
which became a young man and made love to a Yurucari girl, of
metamorphosis into vegetables in Samoa, {10c} of an Ottawa myth in which
a man became a plant of maize, and then of the story of Tuna. {10d} Next
I mentioned plants said to have sprung from dismembered gods and heroes.
_All_ this, I said, _all_ of it, proves that savages mythically regard
human life as on a level with vegetable no less than with animal life.
'Turning to the mythology of Greece, we see that the same rule holds
good. Metamorphosis into plants and flowers is extremely common,' and I,
of course, attributed the original idea of such metamorphoses to 'the
general savage habit of "levelling up,"' of regarding all things in
nature as all capable of interchanging their identities. I gave, as
classical examples, Daphne, Myrrha, Hyacinth, Narcissus, and the sisters
of Phaethon. Next I criticised Mr. Max Muller's theory of Daphne. But I
never hinted that the isolated Mangaian story of Tuna, or the stories of
plants sprung from mangled men, 'accounted,' by themselves, 'for the
story of Daphne.'

Mr. Max Muller is not content with giving a very elaborate and
interesting account of how the story of Tuna arose (i. 5-7). He keeps
Tuna in hand, and, at the peroration of his vast work (ii. 831), warns us
that, before we compare myths in unrelated languages, we need 'a very
accurate knowledge of their dialects . . . to prevent accidents like that